NEWSLETTER 01

Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics

July 2014

PEOPLE

July 2014

INFN IN EUROPE
Interview with Fernando Ferroni, President of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics.

Let's start from the future: what is INFN’s part in ESFRI, the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures?
The first major project in which INFN is a leading player in ESFRI is certainly Km3Net, the underwater observatory for neutrinos off the coast of southern Sicily: besides being hosted in Italy, numerous INFN researchers are among its project leaders.
In addition, INFN, along with CNR and Electra, for Italy, were recently given the go-ahead to join the European Spallation Source (ESS) project to build the world’s largest neutron source, in Sweden. This infrastructure offers high potential for basic research and has important multidisciplinary implications. INFN has already started to provide part of the contribution in kind provided for in the participation agreement. In the context of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project, INFN is leader of the group responsible for the construction, in Romania, of ELI-NP for nuclear physics applications, and is actively involved in the ELI MED project, dedicated to ELI medical applications. INFN’s formal participation in the X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) project and Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) project in Germany is also under discussion.
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NEWS

July 2014

EU-Collaboration ITALY IN THE ESS PROJECT

In the autumn, implementation of the most powerful neutron source in the world will begin in Lund, Sweden. The project is called European Spallation Source (ESS) and Italy is participating with the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), INFN, the National Research Council (CNR) and Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste.

ScienceA "QUANTUM TRAP" FOR GRAVITY

Measurement of the gravitational constant G, a challenge that has involved scientists from all over the world for over two hundred years, is getting increasingly closer to the exact value. The results, published in Nature, were achieved with the Magia experiment by researchers at the INFN and the European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS).

Dissemination“ITALY OF THE FUTURE” IN STOCKHOLM

During the Italian Presidency Semester of the EU Council, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is promoting the new 2014 edition of the "Italy of the future" exhibition. The first stop of the exhibition is in Stockholm, where it will remain open until 24 August.

FOCUS ON

KM3NET SEARCHING FOR NEUTRINOS

In the Mediterranean Sea, at a depth of 3500 metres off the coast of Sicily, a gigantic underwater telescope for neutrinos of cosmic origin is under construction: this is the Km3Net or "Cubic kilometre" project.
The project envisages the construction, by 2015, of a hundred or so underwater structures that will form an observation grid extending over one cubic kilometre of sea. The structures will act as a support for the gigantic undersea antenna, consisting of tens of thousands of optical sensors (photomultipliers) able to detect the blue light trail marking the passage of neutrinos, called "Cherenkov light".

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

PHYSICS FOR THE CULTURAL HERITAGE: THE FAKE LEGER

The Guggenheim Museum in Venice asked a team of INFN scientists, who for years have been working on the applications of physics to the field of cultural heritage, to analyse a painting attributed to Fernand Léger, the authenticity of which has always given rise to doubts. In February 2014, researchers from the Laboratory for the Environment and Cultural Heritage (LABEC) of Florence finally unravelled the mystery: it is a fake.